Hello Kitty’s Supercute Friendship Festival

I love me some Hello Kitty since before kindergarten. Once I heard about this event, I knew I wanted in. My sisters, husband & I headed to the first timeslot of the day for the event. The parking price at Oracle was ridiculous for the event…
Anyhoo, we had a super fun time with the kawaii-​ness that is Hello Kitty & her friends. We got cute temporary tattoos, wrote postcards, had crazy cute photo ops, bought cute merch & took photos with Hello Kitty herself!
There were also shows during the ~3 hour event. We only watched the last one, but it was really cute nonetheless. I was hoping the event would have been bigger, but better than nothing. We had a good time & that’s what counts :)

I’m crushing on Hello Kitty even more so than ever! After Hello Kitty Con 2014, I had major cuteness withdrawals… All I wanted to do was roll around with all my Sanrio stuff animals and get more cuteness out of them! Withdrawals will make you do insane things. So, when I heard about this festival, me and my gal pals snapped up tickets on the day it went on sale. We all feared tickets would be sold out just like HK Con. But it didn’t.
We went Friday evening, which was the first day of this 3-​day event. The experience was far different from HK Con we attended. Less crowds, shorter lines, less things to do and see and less merchandising. However, it was still CUTE! This festival was about 20% of what I saw at HK Con, many items were duplicated but some were new. At least there were other Sanrio characters celebrated at this event. I got to see in the flesh: Hello Kitty, My Melody, Badz Maru, Kerroopi, Twin Stars, and Chococat. This time, I got to take photos with Hello Kitty and Chococat, which was cool! I wasn’t able to do that at HK Con because the crowds there was enormous!
Overall, we had a good time. We got cute photo ops, watched a sing/​dance routine by HK, got our super cute faux HK tattoo, squished our souvenir pennies, and bought cute goods. We were IN and OUT within 2.5 hours. The crowd was manageable and not clustered up like HK Con, quite refreshing to go through this. However, I do wish there was more to see and do. We found free parking right outside of the park close to the BART entrance. When we came over the bridge, a go-​cart car came by, picked us up and drove us to the Arena area. THAT.WAS.SO.COOL! We felt so special. But going back to the car, we didn’t get the same treatment.
Now that the festival is over… I’m going through withdrawals again. I can’t get the addiction out of me and am wanting more Hello Kitty fixes…

Adorable has got to be the word! Cartoony happy whimsical land!
Started out upset going in because I couldnt get over how much $$$$ we were spending just to get in. Long line to enter the front door. You get 3 hours to browse, otherwise i wouldve imagined itd be an all day event.
Cute cut outs and sets to take pictures in! Loooove.
Did not bother with merchandise, come on, you got better things to do than wait in line. Just visit the online store and save yourself the irritation.
Learned to make paper bows and fortune tellers on hkitty paper!
Wrote postcards to hkitty. Free pins handed out by staff.
Food was overpriced, $ 13 for a beer, so eat beforehand.
Bounce house for children. However I didnt see a sign that said no adults!
Show looks lame online but in person it was happy and magical. Sigh! In love. With childhood and memories.
Get your face painted as keroppi or hkitty!
Tattoos omg too cool. Way better than the temporary tats youd buy in store. Fantastic quality.
Great vision for the event however could lower the cost and host at a more accomodating venue.
*goes browse more sanrio stuff now

Not worth the 35 admission (46.50 including taxes and fees) but it’s probably the only thing that kept the turmoil down.
One star because it was cute. Another star for the liquor, because I know most of us needed it.

Growing up in Japan, I always love Hello Kitty.
Hello Kitty is cute. That is a definitive fact.
However, the fee is overpriced. $ 45 is expensive.
The goods are expensive and I don’t think people went to see Hello Kitty dancing. Probably a professional dancer plays her role.

So, this was an interesting experience. If you want to see disorganization at its finest wait in one of the merchandise lines. This review went from three stars for a very basic and overpriced convention to a near riot.
I exaggerate not about a riot. If hadn’t yelled at a very passive excuse for a supervisor to keep people from cutting in line. Everybody in line waited for an hour for this overpriced merch. Finally after bow tie boy heard my disgruntled yell for him to do something, he made some cutters onto the back of the line, but let the worst cutters stay put. He put up some barriers as a sadly late semblance of organization. Plus you had security there that stood by and did nothing while this was going on. It’s like all friendship and cuteness was gone after that. I was super pissed by this mess.
My advice is to get your merchandise early because people don’t know the meaning of patience or courtesy. The convention should’ve been Hello Kitty’s Supercramped Overpriced Disorganized Festival. Vee Corporation and Sanrio Inc. should be ashamed of this mess!

I love me some Hello Kitty, but this festival is underwhelming and overpriced. Parking is $ 35, adult tickets are $ 35, kids 2 and up are $ 25. There are tickets available at the box office. The entrance is at the south tunnel where you go through security. They don’t let you in until the time on your ticket. The line wrapped around past the box office. Once inside, prepare for line after line. There are two merchandise booths where if you wait to the end, expect the line to go towards the main stage. There are spam musubi kits for $ 20. There’s a penny pressing machine, face painting, temporary tattoos and one character meet and greet. All with long lines. There are two stages, the main stage and the smaller rainbow stage. There are about 5 performances that run for about 10 minutes. The food is just coliseum concession food (hot dogs, popcorn…). The whole session is 3 hours and they cut the line for tattoos 20 mins prior to the end. Wouldn’t do it again, I would rather just buy Sanrio swag online and skip all the lines.